Friday, January 04, 2013

Standard-Examiner: Our View: Independent Inquiry Needed on Raid

It's incumbent upon Mr. and Mrs. Hill retain council and file a lawsuit in this matter, we believe

Strong editorial in this morning's Standard-Examiner, urging that "[a]n independent inquiry should be conducted on what happened during the raid Ogden police conducted on Dec. 20 at the home of Eric and Melanie Hill":

The Standard essentially correct, of course. An OPD internal investigation is a clearly insufficient mechanism to fully investigate this incident, as an OPD investigation of its own agents' conduct represents a clear conflict of interest, per se:

I'm not convinced the investigation should be done by any police agency. Perhaps a group of retired officers, judges, defense and prosecuting attorneys would be a good alternative.

So what about it folks? Should the Ogden City Council, in cooperation with Mayor Caldwell, appoint a blue ribbon commission, composed of "retired officers, judges, defense and prosecuting attorneys" to investigate this dreadful incident?

Frankly we're not quite convinced that even this approach would eliminate any possible conflict of interest taint; and in that connection we'll submit that there's already a sufficient investigatory mechanism in place:

It's incumbent upon Mr. and Mrs. Hill to retain council and file a lawsuit in this matter, we believe. Only through an orderly and thorough civil prosecution and adjudication will the misconduct and liabilities of the involved parties ever be properly sorted out.

I suppose it has to fall to me, yet again, to point out the obvious that no one else sees . . . that it could just be that the Hills over-dramatized this whole thing for the express purpose of hitting the jackpot courtesy of Ogden taxpayers. It could be the case, could it not? But I don't know. We don't know. If the police really were as bad as the Hills say, then people in Ogden PD should be fired left and right. But we don't know. Calling Mayor Caldwell: sort it out. It's your job.